Shattuck went to Shrek last night at the Orpheum.  He was so excited.
 
Lale put him in his Harod’s wool jacket and his red Woody’s Cowboy hat.  Downtown Memphis with all of the lights really excited him.  He squeeled with a smile on his face the entire way from the car to the Orpheum.
When we got in, he took it all in with quite amazement.  He was not heavy enough to really sit in the chair… it kept folding in on him.  Once the lights went down, he crawled into my lap.  The entire first Act, he sat quitely and followed every movement very carefully.
 
At intermission, he got up and ran down the isle and looked over the balcony at the orchestra pit.  You could see he was no longer apprehensive about where he was or what this was all about.

Now he was starting to understand why we were there.
 
The lights went down for the second act.  For most of the second Act, he stood on his feet… gripping the seats in front of us.  Sometimes his knuckles were white.  He danced to the musical pieces, and when Shrek would re-emerge on stage, he would point to him and turn around to us and yell ‘CAR’!!
 
He only tried to get away and run up to the stage twice… but he was too excited to fight me on that… he went back to watching carefully.  His concentration was running 100%.
 
When the actors came out after the play, everyone stood up.  I held him up.  He clapped along with the rest of the audience… BUT… when Shrek came out… both hands went up like he was at a rock concert and he yelled at the TOP of his voice… ‘C-A-R-R-R’….
Then confeti was dropped from the ceiling and fell all around him.  He was smiling from ear to ear and his eyes were so bright!

He immediately ran down to the front of the stage again to see if he could see the actors.
 
We were close to the last people to leave.  As we left, I bought him a Ginger Bread doll about 1 1/2 high and a Shrek hat.  He wore the hat all the way outside and home and held on the the doll.  He went to bed literally smiling with the doll in his arms.
 
When I left for work this morning, he was still clinging to Gingie.